Entries in Australia
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By Rob Bates, News Director

Posted on October 3, 2014

Oct. 3 was a tough day for metal prices: Gold sank below $1,200, and platinum plummeted to a five-year low.

Gold’s drop below the $1,200 barrier is the latest dip in a roller-coaster year for the yellow metal: It started the year over $1,200 and seemed to be approaching the $1,400 mark in March. But at press time, its spot price was $1,192 an ounce, meaning it is now down for the year.

IF diamonds are a girl's best friend, to use the well-known refrain, then a pink diamond is a soulmate - an exceedingly rare find. It was certainly the rarest of finds for global mining giant Rio Tinto in 1979 in Smoke Creek in Western Australia's Kimberley, a region of rugged yet breathtaking terrain.

Exploration crews were working their way along that creek on October 2, 1979, when one of the geologists saw a small diamond embedded in an anthill. Thus began the start of the Argyle diamond mine and a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Diamond enthusiasts marvel at the sparkle and attraction of a white gem, but the precious pink stones are truly unique and they comprise less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of Argyle's annual diamond production.

Mandy Drury was standing in front of the big board of about 450 stocks at the CNBC studio. All stocks were heavily in the red. The market was down over 200 points. There was an air of nervousness as we were witnessing the worst selloff in the market in four months.

The market seemed to be paying homage to the 25th anniversary of Black Monday, the 19th of October, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by 508 points to 1738.74 (22.61%).

I thought, nothing out of the ordinary had transpired - General Electric and McDonald’s missed analyst expectations, notwithstanding that they still reported respectable earnings. It was Google though that really made people sit up

All natural diamonds have faults that could negatively influence their gemological rating and financial value. Diamond cutters can remove some of the clarity faults, but some flaws demand a different treatment, one which has techniques developed since the 1970s to nowadays. Every treatment that a diamond undergoes must be disclosed at every stage. Anyone who violates this obligation is breaking rules which apply to members of every diamond bourse and association in the world. In some cases, it is even illegal not to disclose.